GM To Invest $2.2 Billion In First All-Electric Vehicle Plant, Create 2,200 Jobs (nbcnews.com) 186
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NBC News: General Motors confirmed Monday it will invest $2.2 billion to convert an aging Detroit assembly plant into the manufacturing heart of its "all-electric future." The Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Plant was one of five North American factories GM said it would close in November 2018 but the automaker reversed course as part of an aggressive plan to launch more than 20 battery-electric vehicles, or BEVs, by 2023. The first to roll out of what is known locally as the "Poletown Plant" will be an all-electric pickup that will reportedly be the subject of an upcoming Super Bowl ad. It is widely expected to bring back the name, "Hummer," used for a brand GM abandoned in 2010 after emerging from bankruptcy.
The plant will be capable of using an extremely flexible vehicle "architecture," said GM President Lloyd Reuss, industry-speak for its underlying platform. It will allow the automaker to produce multiple products "for multiple brands, with multiple variants, with multiple customers (offering) different ranges of performance at different price points to meet customers wherever they are." After a news conference at the plant, Reuss told NBC News there will be multiple pickup truck models. The Poletown plant also will have the capacity to produce SUVs and crossovers, he said. What is expected to be called the Hummer pickup will go into production in late 2021. It will be followed in early 2022 by a version of the Cruise Origin, the fully driverless ride-sharing vehicle announced last week by Cruise, GM's autonomous vehicle subsidiary. The $2.2 billion that GM will spend on the plant "is part of a broader investment of $3 billion authorized as part of the contract it negotiated last autumn with the United Auto Workers Union," adds NBC News. That includes a number of other projects, including a plan to set up a factory in Lordstown, Ohio to build batteries.
The plant will be capable of using an extremely flexible vehicle "architecture," said GM President Lloyd Reuss, industry-speak for its underlying platform. It will allow the automaker to produce multiple products "for multiple brands, with multiple variants, with multiple customers (offering) different ranges of performance at different price points to meet customers wherever they are." After a news conference at the plant, Reuss told NBC News there will be multiple pickup truck models. The Poletown plant also will have the capacity to produce SUVs and crossovers, he said. What is expected to be called the Hummer pickup will go into production in late 2021. It will be followed in early 2022 by a version of the Cruise Origin, the fully driverless ride-sharing vehicle announced last week by Cruise, GM's autonomous vehicle subsidiary. The $2.2 billion that GM will spend on the plant "is part of a broader investment of $3 billion authorized as part of the contract it negotiated last autumn with the United Auto Workers Union," adds NBC News. That includes a number of other projects, including a plan to set up a factory in Lordstown, Ohio to build batteries.
NAFTA 3.0 says get cracking (Score:3)
Canada and the strong GDP states that require EVs by 2020, 2025, 2030, and 2035 say this is way overdue.
Adapt.
That or we will buy Chinese EVs and lie to you about where we got them.
Down the Drain (Score:2, Insightful)
The problem is, nobody cares. Excepting coastal elites buying a Tesla as their more-expensive iPhone or Apple Watch, [bloomberg.com], nobody's buying electric cars.
And G.M.'s electric car, the Chevy Bolt, have been a disaster. [electrek.co]. E.V.s are pricier and take a hella lot longer to refuel.
But no worries... G.M. says It will allow the automaker to produce multiple products "for multiple brands, with multiple variants, with multiple customers (offering) different ranges of performance at different price points to meet customers [nbcnews.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Nonsense. I'm nowhere near a coast and Tesla are literally everywhere.
Re: (Score:2)
Isn't that what killed Saturn? They were just rebadged Chevys and Buicks?
I'll have to look but I thought Saturn was a clean sheet development, sharing nothing with GM cars.
Re: (Score:2)
Tesla sold more than 200K cars, and lost Federal tax credit. Last year it sold 360K cars. All over the world, not just in CA.
GM may or may not be learning. But you need to up your game and learn something about EV. It does not behoove your four digit ID to be so ignorant about EVs and Tesl
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
ICE's are dead.
No, they are not.
I'll believe that ICE vehicles are dead when EV sales aren't driven by government mandates, rebates, and other incentives. I'll believe the EV replaced the ICE when the funding for roads is no longer provided by gasoline and diesel fuel sales. When it comes to pulling a load over a long distance the EV simply fails. Sure, there's videos out there showing an EV pulling heavy loads, perhaps far heavier then any ICE vehicles of similar size and/or price, but batteries cannot yet hold enough
Re: (Score:2)
I do care about my impact on the environment and the cost and time of maintenance of ICE cars.
I'm sure there are quite a few people who agree with me and will continue to buy increasingly more electric cars in the near future.
Re: (Score:3)
I don't care about government incentives
There's plenty of people that do, because without those incentives to lower upfront costs (such as to pay for the at home charger) they simply may not be able to afford an electric vehicle that is able to meet their needs.
or pulling loads over long distances
I'll admit this is a small portion of the market but if EVs can't pull loads over long distances then the ICE is not dead. Buyers of the Tesla Cybertruck expecting it to be able to pull travel trailers will be very disappointed.
or performance in cold weather.
There's going to be a lot of people that do.
I do care about my impact on the environment and the cost and time of maintenance of ICE cars.
There's more than
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Motorola and Nokia mobile devices (Score:2)
Charging Infrastructure (Score:3, Insightful)
A $20k gasoline dispenser can pump 10 gallons of gas a minute. If that gasoline is going into a 30MPG car, the “recharging rate” is something like 18,000 mile sper hour.
A $150,000 fast DC charge (250kW) can briefly hit 1000MPH but more realistically charges at about 600MPH.
It will take up to 30 fast DC chargers to replace a single gas pump and cost 200x as much and may take 30 times the area. The equivelent of a six pump would approch $27 Million in cost and would require 2 acres of land.
Worse still, many users will charge at home and the fast charging infrastructure will only be needed during heavy trable times like Thanksgiving and Christmas.
All BEV manufacturers except Teslamare counting on third-parties to build, operate, and maintain this charging network.
I do not see how a third party could possibly afford to stay iin business charging BEVs.
Re:Charging Infrastructure (Score:4, Insightful)
You're in the "I must use a EV like a gas car" thinking
The only time fast chargers matter is on road trips, which don't comprise most of the trips taken by car.
Think of it this way - in a typical day, most people drive to work. The car sits there for 8-9 or more hours, then they drive home. During that time, the work charger only needs to replenish the charge used to get to work, plus a little bit. If the average commute is around 20 miles, that's around 3 miles per hour. That charge rate is typically achieved through a regular 120V 15A plug on most EVs. Perhaps you like to go out for lunch, or do a few errands. Even a 240V 20A socket will suit your needs more than enough.
At home, the situation is similar - the car sits at home and spends hours there. Again, you don't need to fast charge it.
As you go about your errands, you run it off battery - charging is more optional than you might think.
Level 1 chargers are quite adequate for most drives - your car sits around 90% of the time parked, so why not use those long stretches to charge?
The worst is to think it's got to be done like a gas car where you have to every week go to the gas station and fill up. Instead, with a EV, you "fill up" at night or at work or anywhere else you spend significant amount of time at.
The two people where this doesn't work are those who are constantly on the road doing long road trips not stopping at all (which is stupid and dangerous), and those who have unrealistically long commutes of an hour or more each way (probably at least 50 miles distance) - those whose commutes are mostly in gridlock don't actually use a lot of power
Production (Score:5, Insightful)
Tesla made roughly 260,000 cars last year. Ford made around 6 million. Tesla is pretty far from having won. Scaling is difficult.
Re:Production (Score:5, Insightful)
I kind of suspect that having nudged things to the point where GM is fitting out a plant for all-electric vehicles _is_ Musk winning. His goal has never seemed to be to become a big-time automaker, but instead to disprove some of the myths preventing electric adoption, like "you can't make batteries cheap enough", "you can't put in enough batteries to get good range", "nobody's gonna buy one of these", and "if this is a good idea why isn't anyone else doing it"
Re: (Score:2)
Correct. Musk has always said his main goal is to get EV technology adopted. He isn't interested in money or anything like that. He just wants to push humanity forward.
Re:Production (Score:5, Interesting)
True. And I would add that just because GM is building a new EV plant does not mean they're going to catch up with Tesla anytime soon. They are making some of the right moves -- such as partnering with LG to build a dedicated battery factory -- but it will be at least a year or two before they start producing cars from these facilities. Meanwhile, Tesla keeps moving the goal posts. By the time GM figures out how to build a 250-mile EV at a profitable margin, Tesla will be selling 400-mile EVs for a similar price.
Then there's a problem of cannibalizing their ICE vehicle sales as they ramp up EV sales. There may be a "valley of no profits" to cross before they achieve viability in the EV market. I suspect that several of the legacy OEMs will not survive that transition.
Re: (Score:3)
I don't think it's just cannibalizing their ICE sales that is the problem. I think the dealership model is the biggest problem since most dealerships make lots of money in their service departments. They don't have the incentive to push EVs because it hurts their bottom line.
Tesla doesn't have any of the unneeded middlemen and I think that's the largest challenge all the legacy automakers will face long term to be successful with EVs. I think dealerships will have to be dragged kicking and screaming to want
Re: (Score:2)
Motivating other companies to be the eventual economic winners in the electric car market would be a moral victory. I'm sure Mr. Musk would feel just as good about his moral victory as other fiercely competitive people who fail to win championships and competitions. That is, they would absolutely hate it. Yes, Elon said he would glory in his moral victory, but he also called the diving guy a pervert, so I'm not sure he's exactly a stickler for the truth.
Re:It was always going to happen (Score:5, Informative)
And finally, electric cars are NOT good for the environment. As long as much of the electricity comes from coal. The extra power required for the electric cars is extra coal being burnt, better to burn petroleum.
Jesus fucking wept, how many times does this crap have to be refuted. Well-to-wheel analyses are still in favour of EVs even where the electricity mix is coal-heavy. Which is fewer and fewer places. See, for example: https://www.carbonbrief.org/fa... [carbonbrief.org]
And non-C02 pollution from ICEs was solved long ago.
Tell that to the millions of people suffering respiratory disease caused by particulate matter, NOx, and other non-CO2 emissions. How do you imagine these problems have been solved, exactly?
Re: (Score:2)
Interesting article.
It basically says that if 50% (say) of a country's electricity comes from non-carbon sources, then 50% of the electricity used for electric cars is non-carbon.
The problem with that argument is that all the non-carbon electricity is already being consumed. So the extra power to charge more electric cars would come from coal.
So lies, damn lies, and statistics.
If you wanted to spend an extra $1bn on reducing CO2 you would be much better spending it on non-carbon electricity than supporting
Re: (Score:2)
Interesting article.
It basically says that if 50% (say) of a country's electricity comes from non-carbon sources, then 50% of the electricity used for electric cars is non-carbon.
The problem with that argument is that all the non-carbon electricity is already being consumed. So the extra power to charge more electric cars would come from coal.
Where does this conclusion come from? Barring SE Asia (which needs so much additional power they're building everything), everyone is moving to renewables [theguardian.com] for new power plants, so pretty much all that extra demand will be met by renewables. Sure there might be some aberrant LNG in there, but with the levelised cost of energy for renewables (with storage!) continuing to drop, carbon based power plants are non-starters.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Mate, if you ever paid money for lessons in either English or verbal reasoning, I'd ask for it back. You have completely mis-understood the article, and drawn specious conclusions from it.
And you may have forgotten why I posted the article, but I certainly haven't. I posted it because you wrote the following completely rubbish: "And finally, electric cars are NOT good for the environment. As long as much of the electricity comes from coal."
And the article demonstrates, having looked carefully at all the ava
Re: (Score:2)
And finally, electric cars are NOT good for the environment. As long as much of the electricity comes from coal. .... sigh, idiots all over the place.
Yes, they are. As burning gasoline in the car produces 2 - 4 times as much CO2
Re: (Score:2)
When you call someone an idiot to display your own intelligence.
Re: (Score:3)
In my EV you stomp the pedal and you've instantly got nearly 300 pound-feet of torque dumped to the wheels. It's like the falcon going into hyperdrive. Plus the heavy battery gives me a low centre-of-gravity that sticks the car to the road.
And that's just in a little Kia Soul EV that's not even particularly optimized for performance.
https://s1.cdn.autoevolution.c... [autoevolution.com]
Re: (Score:3)
Even powered by the dirtiest electricity possible, an electric car becomes more environmentally efficient that a gasoline car in a very short time.
Are you really such a fucking moron you didn't know this, or are you simply a conscienceless shill for the fossil fuel sector?
Re: (Score:3)
Nissan and GM deserve more credit. Teslas are expensive and in the luxury market segment. By that I mean if you are looking for value for money there are better cars, you buy a Tesla for the same reason you buy an iPhone most of the time. Which is fine... But Nissan and GM developed the affordable EV market and proved that affordable EVs are viable and attractive cars.
For example the new Zoe 50 has the same size battery as a Model 3 SR+ and similar range, but costs over £15,000 less. It's really
Re: (Score:2)
Tesla is scaling up to 500,000 cars per plant it seems although it also would take time. They should be able to get to 1.5 to 2 million cars by the time VW and GM go high volume on electric. So Tesla could make it really big (or they get there through acquisitions but that is not their style so far) but they will more likely be a more upscale and lower volume brand for many years to come. There is also a part of me that half expects Ford to acquire Rivian, GM building it out alone and VW eventually buying T
Re: (Score:3)
Fremont is currently running about 350k/yr Model 3s and 80k/yr S+X, and they haven't even started Model Y there (although they appear to be getting very close to deliveries; the schedule was moved up to this summer on the last earnings call, and it looks like it might actually be spring). They target about 40% more global sales for Y than the 3, but that doesn't mean they'll produce 40% more at Fremont specifically.
The new GF3 in China is targeting abo
Re: Production (Score:2)
Do you have any info on what type of birds needs to be relocated for the GF4?I have heard they are Norwegian Blackbirds. Any confirmation? Also, what materials do they use for the nests and can the nests be transported to the new location?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Does Slashdot's entire readership have a congenital disability that renders them blind to recognizing when someone is trolling them?
Re: (Score:2)
Every single time you post that "you can't buy a 35k Model 3", I've posted you links of different people who've bought them recently. You literally just go into the store or call in and order it off-menu; it's just a software-downgraded SR+, and it's only kept off-menu to encourage upsale. You know what, though? I'm done with this. If you want to live in a bubble, that's your choice. Just like solar roofs - go on Youtube and search for people with their installations. Or the gigafactory, where there's ne
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
> Tesla made roughly 260,000 cars last year. Ford made around 6 million. Tesla is pretty far from having won. Scaling is difficult.
Well Ford only has a 116 year head start.
Also it looks like Ford sold 2.4 million vehicles in 2019 src [detroitnews.com] - and in terms of cars which are direct competition to Tesla, they only sold 349,091.
Tesla's total sales for 2019 also seem to be 367,500 vehicles src - though that includes all models including their Model X SUV so this number should not be compared directly to Ford's 350K
Re: (Score:2)
Don't forget that Ford has given up making cars, excepting Mustangs, in N. America.
Re: (Score:2)
It's irrelevant regardless. The market doesn't compare companies by # of vehicles produced; they're compared by EBITDA. Ford's Q3 EBITDA was $1,8B. Tesla's was $0,85B. Ford's EBITDA long-term is declining. Tesla's is growing rapidly.
Nobody wants to own a shrinking company; they want to own fast-growing ones. Investors look to future profits, because that's literally how companies are valued - the net present value of future profits.
Why is the # of vehicles vs. EBITDA so different? Quite a few reasons, r
Re: (Score:2)
Consider getting your numbers correct if you want to be taken seriously. Tesla built 367,500 cars in 2019. That's still less than 10% of Ford's total (assuming your Ford number is correct), but more importantly, Tesla's numbers are increasing, while Ford's are decreasing.
Lol. For scale, one factory bigger than Tesla (Score:5, Interesting)
For scale, the improvements to this one factory are a bit bigger than all of Tesla's annual capital expenditures combined. Overall, each year GM spends about 10X what Tesla does on new factories and equipment.
The largest car companies such as Volkswagen and Renault-Nissan tend to apend a bit more, of course.
So what? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly. GM hasn't built shit and Tesla has.
Re:So what? (Score:4, Interesting)
Renault Nissan sold more EVs than Tesla* and they are affordable too.
The real danger for Tesla is that someone like GM gets really serious and uses their ICE volume to get economies of scale that Tesla can't match. Tesla has the Apple-like cool factor / reality distortion field but who knows if it's enough once say VW get up to speed.
* Last time I checked, Tesla was catching up to Leaf+Zoe sales.
Re: (Score:3)
You're seriously comparing Leaf + Zoe sales for their entire history to Tesla Model 3 sales, a car that came out in summer of 2017 and didn't hit volume until the second half of 2018? And it's caught up to the Leaf despite that [insideevs.com]. Note that we're just talking about the Model 3 here, not adding S+X numbers in.
In 1H 2019 [ev-volumes.com], Tesla Model 3 sold 128k vehicles globally. The #2 BEV was the BIAC EU-Series at 49k. Leaf was 3rd at 35k; Zoe at #7 with 26k.
Re: (Score:3)
Yes I am seriously comparing Leaf + Zoe sales to the Model 3 because like it or not Renault Nissan are the only ones offering an affordable EV that sells in volume. Well, the Hyundai Ioniq is very good too, but doesn't have the same volume as the Leaf.
It's great that luxury EVs are selling well but to get the numbers on the roads above low single digit percentages they need to be affordable for ordinary people. We have the Honda e and Mini Electric due in the 26-28k range this year, although if you want rea
Re: (Score:3)
Those are list prices. With Tesla you always pay list, with Nissan you can usually get a massive discount.
Anyway I was comparing prices in the UK:
Nissan Leaf 40 ~23k
Nissan Leaf 62 ~33k
Tesla 3 SR+ 40.5k
Those prices include the government grant worth 3.5k and road tax (0 for the Leafs, 1.6k for the Tesla).
You can't buy the SR in Europe. You should also factor in the different insurance rates.
Basically the cheapest Tesla is over 40k and the affordable end of the market, the Leaf 40, Zoe, MG ZS, Soul etc. are a
Re: (Score:3)
Ah yes, they adjusted the pricing. So it's 39.4k plus the 1,600 luxury car tax or whatever they call it. Basically on a zero emission vehicle the road tax is zero, unless the list price is over 40k in which case it's currently 320/year but will doubtless go up. So the total price including tax is 41k.
You can easily get a Leaf 40 for under 23k, e.g. https://www.cars2buy.co.uk/new... [cars2buy.co.uk]
The cheapest 62 on there is 29.9k. So even that is 11k cheaper than a Model 3.
That's the full price, we don't separate out "doc
Re: (Score:2)
I have a Zoe and I love it, but both it and the Leaf have been around a lot longer than the Model 3, so I'm not sure that's a fair comparison. I don't think the Zoe50 is about to start selling in the 100ks, although it bloody well should
What I'd really love from Mr Musk is a Tesla hot hatch for the European markets. Unlikely, though
Re: (Score:2)
What I'd really love from Mr Musk is a Tesla hot hatch for the European markets. Unlikely, though
Based on rumors and hints from the recent Shanghai Gigafactory event, Tesla intends to design a "hot hatch" [teslarati.com] in a new design facility in China. No guidance yet on whether those vehicles will be sold in Europe, but Elon also said they plan to open a design center in Berlin, so maybe they've got special plans for that market.
Re: (Score:3)
GM is spending more. But what will GM get for it?
Wall Street used to look down on Tesla because Tesla was spending so much money they were never profitable. Well, a lot of Tesla's spending was on investments that are now paying off. The most important one: Tesla built their own battery factory, which produces so many batteries that Tesla, itself, manufactures over half of all lithium-ion battery cells [marketwatch.com] in the world each year. (Well, Tesla and Panasonic together, in a joint deal, and with the production l
Re: (Score:3)
5 years ago I thought that by now Tesla would have multiple competitors. I was really surprised that it's already 2020 and nobody has even gotten serious about competing with Tesla yet.
I'm not surprised. The pure electric vehicle still has a long way to go before it can compete with the internal combustion engine. I'll have people tell me that an EV will meet the needs of 99% of all commuters, but that misses the point. People expect the "new shiny" to be better than what they have in most every respect before they will embrace it. A vehicle that takes 30 minutes to get to 80% of it's range is not better than a vehicle that takes 10 minutes to get to 100% of it's range.
Sure, being abl
Re: (Score:2)
There isn't much competition in the EV market because people aren't buying them.
Tesla is selling all it can make and it doesn't even have its crossover compact SUV (the Model Y) ready to sell yet. Tesla has soundly spanked all of its competitors in the premium car market, let alone the EV market.
https://cleantechnica.com/2020/01/18/tesla-model-3-dominates-us-premium-class-small-midsize-car-market-24-of-2019-sales/ [cleantechnica.com]
And, people who would never buy a BMW 3-series are buying a Model 3. (This is sometimes calle
Re: (Score:2)
A vehicle that takes 30 minutes to get to 80% of it's range is not better than a vehicle that takes 10 minutes to get to 100% of it's range.
Maybe I'm weird but I almost wish my car (13 gallon tank) would fill up slower. I only have time to wash one windshield before it's done, not both.
OK, strike "maybe". I'm definitely weird. And I don't actually wish it would take longer.
Re: (Score:3)
People think they s
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You're assuming you can drive up and charge immediately. Soon this will almost never be the case.
In some areas (e.g. downtown Los Angeles) Tesla doesn't have nearly enough chargers even today; in other areas Tesla has more than enough. Tesla keeps selling cars so demand will grow; but, Tesla is still building out their Supercharger network, so supply will grow too. Also, newer Tesla cars will charge faster, increasing the number of cars one charger can serve.
Note that Tesla doesn't give free use of their
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
But how many people have a Tesla versus any other EV? At least 50% of the people out there with an EV can't use a Supercharger station.
But those people are already suffering and it's not getting better soon.
Rei was talking about how fast a recent Tesla can charge on a recent Supercharger, and therefore so was I.
There are web sites that tell you where to find chargers (I recommend PlugShare.com) and there's a site that plans the whole trip for you (abetterrouteplanner.com).
After I found I could buy a used Ni
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Lol. For scale, one factory bigger than Tesla (Score:4, Informative)
"But those people are already suffering and it's not getting better soon."
Meanwhile, in reality....
Bloomberg Model 3 Survey [bloomberg.com]
Supercharger Availability: (note: this includes people who live in remote areas without any Superchargers near them, or regularly visit such areas - not simply "occupied stalls")
* Very satisfied: 68,9%
* Somewhat satisfied: 20,6%
* Neutral: 7,4%
* Somewhat dissatisfied: 1,9%
* Very dissatisfied: 1,2%
Charging Convenience Vs. Gasoline Cars (in general):
* Very satisfied: 78,6%
* Somewhat satisfied: 13,5%
* Neutral: 5,0%
* Somewhat dissatisfied: 2,4%
* Very dissatisfied: 0,5%
Charging Convenience Vs. Gasoline Cars (Superchargers in specific):
* Very satisfied: 41,6%
* Somewhat satisfied: 24,3%
* Neutral: 20,8%
* Somewhat dissatisfied: 10,4%
* Very dissatisfied: 2,9%
Now here's something I find incredibly strange. These are the numbers reported by actual Tesla owners. Tesla owners are very satisfied with Supercharging, in relationship to ICE vehicles. Almost every one of them has had extensive experience with ICE vehicles to compare it to. Yet we hear about how much "charging sucks"... from people who've never owned a Tesla and never used a Supercharger. Why is it that the people who've used both love the Supercharger network, while the people who have no experience with the Supercharger network are here to tell us how terrible it is? What makes you think you're in any position to override the views of actual owners?
Re: (Score:3)
Total time? 18 minutes.
With a rushed stop.
That's not a "rushed" stop.
A rushed stop is taking less than 5 minutes total to piss and grab something to eat and drink from a vending machine at an interstate rest stop. And I did time myself.
You are still missing the point. An EV is still a trade down for most people. Even then you can make your rational arguments but that assumes the person is making a rational decision. An EV is still an unknown for people that have only driven dinosaur burners.
Re: (Score:2)
I seriously doubt that. Again, everyone was in a rush. Again, didn't even eat there - just got the food and left. A stop where we had actually eaten our food would have added at least 10 minutes more.
All the little things add up during a stop.
But let's say you didn't have six people like we did, among them two chi
Re: (Score:3)
As shown when there were power outages because of California wildfires (or threats of causing wildfires if the power wasn't cut), or in hurricanes in Florida, there is another concern. ...
Yes, and a gas station works perfectly well when it has no power
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If it has one.
Re: (Score:2)
A vehicle that takes 30 minutes to get to 80% of it's range is not better than a vehicle that takes 10 minutes to get to 100% of it's range.
I save a huge amount of time on refuelling because I don't have to go out of my way to a petrol station and hang around in the cold and then get a hefty bill. I just plug in when I get home, takes 10 seconds max.
If I have to have lunch while charging on a long journey once in a while I'm still saving time overall compared to a fossil car.
And that's before I even conside
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
5 years ago I thought that by now Tesla would have multiple competitors. I was really surprised that it's already 2020 and nobody has even gotten serious about competing with Tesla yet.
Not just you. Even Elon was surprised. He thought the big boys would have give serious competition by 2017.
They don't have to hurry (Score:2)
> 5 years ago I thought that by now Tesla would have multiple competitors. I was really surprised that it's already 2020 and nobody has even gotten serious about competing with Tesla yet.
There are Chinese companies like SAIC and BYD which probably make more electric vehicles than Tesla, but I guess you're thinking of US companies.
Remember those companies sell millions of cars, Tesla sells thousands. Tesla is in a hurry to try to get big. GM and Ford already ARE big. They don't need to hurry to build fa
Re: (Score:2)
There are Chinese companies like SAIC and BYD which probably make more electric vehicles than Tesla, but I guess you're thinking of US companies.
It's true, I'm mainly interested in the US market. Tesla is new and ramping up so the US market is the one in which they are best positioned to compete... I'll bet Ford or GM sell way more cars in, say, India than Tesla at this point in its life, but that's not an interesting comparison. The US market is where Tesla has its best chance so that's the most "fair" c
Re: (Score:2)
> Tesla has been investing and building and hiring the best people they can get for years now.
Yeah they've been investing $1 billion, $2 billion for years.
GM routinely invests $25 billion. That's not even a big initiative - that's a typical year. They could do $50 billion if they felt the tike was right and invest more in a single year than Tesla has invested over the entire lifetime of the company.
Re your example of the "superbottle", unless Tesla can defend a patent on putting the valve inside the ta
Re: (Score:2)
Re your example of the "superbottle", unless Tesla can defend a patent on putting the valve inside the tank, GM, Ford, and a dozen other companies will thank them very much for the idea.
Did you miss the part where I quoted Sandy Munro as saying that the Big 3 don't do vertical integration like this?
Two signs that the Big 3 might be starting to compete with Tesla: (0) they build their own battery factories; (1) they start doing "clean sheet" EV designs with Tesla-like innovations.
Neither of those has happene
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah I see that patent application attempts to cover certain aspects of the bottle. Until it's granted we won't know which claims are accepted, so no need to read patentese until then.
I agree when the large automaker builds a large battery factory that'll be a big sign. I agree they have chosen not to do so yet. Maybe they figure a year from now technology will be different or whatever. I'm just saying it's not because they can't, and they don't need to build a big car company from scratch the way Musk
Re: (Score:3)
Even the greatest bull 6000$ price target girl from some fund, Kathy Woods or someone, has the bull case of Tesla maintaining 18% market share. Thats all.
It is very much possible Tesla will end up with something like 15 to 20% market share and concentrate on premium segment alone. Leaving the A, B and C segments for others.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Wrong: https://techcrunch.com/2019/04... [techcrunch.com]
Clearly stated as 2020. This year is 2020.
Re: (Score:2)
Like he promised the short burn of the century in 2018. He delivered it finally in 2020 Jan. It's like that.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That sounds nice in theory, but in Europe the attitude is:
My Car is my Castle!
The amount of "private" people partaking in such a thing will be abysmal.
I doubt I would let other people use my car via an app ... perhaps if it would make "closed circles of friends" ...
Re: (Score:2)
All of their Model 3 cars and all of the S and X cars produced in the last year or two have the hardware for robotaxi and they are on the road gathering data every day, training the neural net. They have traveled 100x as many miles training as any other program.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Please upgrade your troll detection software. ;) Can you seriously not tell that you're responding to someone who's trolling?
Re: Too late (Score:2)
Not trolling. All of my info is backed up from links to reputable sites like electric.co
Too late or expanding market? (Score:2)
My sister and her husband, who live in Cali, are looking for a plug-in-electric SUV, actually, and at Christmas we were going over the 4 eSUVs they could buy at dealers there.
Now imagine this happening nationwide, when the dealers finally release all the models to dealers, instead of restrict them only to certain markets.
It is both possible for Elon to do well (Tesla) and for Ford Chevy Audi Fiat to all do very well in the same space.
Oh, and both my brother and I are going to be buying plug-in-electric truc
Re: WillAffleckUW sister sucks Elon's cock? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Elon Musk already won. Might as well not even try!
Good thing Sam Walton didn't say that about Sears, or Jeff Bezos about Walmart, or, for that matter, Musk about Toyota and the Prius.
Anyway, Tesla isn't even close to cornering the market on EVs. For example, I don't want to buy one because they're quite expensive and I don't like the styling. Naturally, YMMV. I assume there are lots of people like me who might buy an EV but don't want to buy a Tesla.
Perhaps GM will come up with a style I like better at a price I'm more comfortable with. I'm not optimistic
Re: (Score:2)
Please learn to recognize trolls; it'll save you time. 110010001000 despises Tesla and SpaceX, and does this in every single thread.
Re: Too late (Score:2)
Despises? I literally just said Tesla was way far ahead. I didnâ(TM)t even mention their automated production capabilities.
Re: (Score:2)
Quick question (Score:2)
After this news one can be assured the con artist will go on a raving rant about how GM will fail, how he's taking away all incentives for electric vehicles, how the C suits are morons.
Meanwhile, the con artist still has his name brand clothes made in China rather than creating jobs in this country employing Americans.
Quick question: Do people like Teslas?
I mean do people who bought Teslas say they like the car, is their resale value high, is there more demand than production?
Do a lot of people want to *own* a Tesla?
(Extra credit if you can explain why wearing clothes made in China is in any way relevant.)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, but not as many as say they like cocaine and want to buy cocaine.
Re: (Score:2)
Quick question: Do people like Teslas?
I mean do people who bought Teslas say they like the car, is their resale value high, is there more demand than production?
Do a lot of people want to *own* a Tesla?
According to Consumer Reports 2019 car owner polling Tesla owners are the more satisfied with their cars than owners of any other manufacturer. Oddly, at the same time Consumer Reports dropped the Model 3 from their recommended list because of some reliability issues, but regardless the owners are happy.
https://www.theverge.com/2019/... [theverge.com]
On resale, Tesla resale values are staying relatively high because there is demand for them... when thousands of buyers are on waiting lists for a new Tesla, some will choose
Re: (Score:2)
Which con artist are you referring to?
Re: (Score:2)
I thought it was Trump
Re: (Score:2)
That's what I figured, except for the clothes comment. Pretty sure all his clothes are made in Italy.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: They're boned (Score:2)
Donald trump has a clothing label?
Re: (Score:2)
After this news one can be assured the con artist will go on a raving rant about how GM will fail, how he's taking away all incentives for electric vehicles, how the C suits are morons.
No, the Luddites will now have to spend enough Bitcoin to short all of GM's stock as well as Tesla's. Good luck with that.
Re: (Score:3)
But can General Motors leap past the rest. The next big move in electric vehicles, externally easily accessible and readily replaceable battery packs. Say four each side mounted accessible via the bottom rail below the car doors. A robot aligns to the car, opens the access point, unlocks the battery and pulls it out and slides in a fully charged battery to replace it. In minutes the car is ready to role and of course service stations have a new lease on life and car manufacturers, well those batteries well,